


Words Unspoken

by SilverDagger



Category: Sharp Teeth (Toby Barlow)
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon, Romance, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-24
Updated: 2014-11-24
Packaged: 2018-02-26 20:05:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2664683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverDagger/pseuds/SilverDagger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Secrets and stories, and life after the war is over. </p><p>Written for the commentfic prompt <a href="http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/568494.html?thread=79735982#t79735982">the heart is quite comfortable with secrets</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Words Unspoken

The two of them leave LA in the end, running north along the coast in search of nowhere in particular, until they find a beach house far enough away and abandoned long enough that they figure they might as well settle in. The owners might come back to claim it one day, Anthony supposes, or the government might finally take notice. Until then, it's not a bad place, as places go. It's not a bad life. They run on four legs, on two, chase each other over sun-scorched sands and tumble in the surf, and every day feels raw and alive and very much like every other.

Money's no problem. He doesn't catch dogs for a living any longer, but he has other talents now, and word gets around after a while that if you've got a job that needs doing - any kind of job - Anthony's the guy to go to. What she does during the day, he doesn't know. Laying low or hunting down the last of those who meant to hurt her, just disappearing for a while into the scrubland and chaparral further inland. Whatever it is, it doesn't bring in cash - but aside from beer and keeping the local butcher shop in business, they don't need much.

*

She vanishes one week - leaves only a scribbled note saying not to worry, she's not gone for good - and comes back smelling of pain and blood, only some of it hers. He meets her on the porch, frayed screen door swinging loose on its hinges as she pushes him up against the peeling paint of the wall, and he tastes sea salt on her lips, smells it in her hair.

When he asks her where she went, she only shrugs one shoulder, winces, her breath an indrawn hiss that speaks of deep bruising, maybe worse.

"Taking care of things," she says. "There were men out there who might have become a problem. Now they won't."

"From your old pack?"

"Different pack," she says, after a long while. "Trying to move in on us, make us theirs."

He nods, accepting. He doesn't yet know all the rules of this new world, but he's getting used to the necessity of violence. _You don't fight back,_ she told him once, _all that means is you die without a fight,_ a chain around your throat or teeth sinking into it. Doesn't matter which, in the end. One is as much a death as the other. But she's alive - he still reminds himself of that, sometimes, waking up in the grey hours before dawn - and so is he, and he knows now that he's willing to do what it takes to keep it that way.

She lifts a hand to his face, traces the rough pad of her thumb along the ridge of his cheekbone with a gentleness that still, after all this time, catches him defenseless. He breathes in the scent of her, sand and sage and the traces of her enemies' blood, and thinks of claws and rough fur, the rush of transformation. She's as real as he is, their shadows sharp-edged in the desert light, a mystery that shows no signs of vanishing.

*

That night, they eat outside on the beach, carne asada tacos and fresh guacamole on paper plates, cheap beer, the end of summertime. The place is deserted - private property, not like wolves care - a long stretch of fine, gritty sand, the air redolent with salt and seaweed. They watch the sun fall beneath the sea and the sky darken, warmed by a driftwood fire, and he looks up at the half-moon hanging in the black and says, "you think you'll ever get tired of this?"

"Food and someone to share it with?" she says, and steals a piece of seared beef off his plate. "What else is there for a dog to want?"

And he catches her before she can slip away, nuzzles her neck and nips at her ear with blunt teeth, and notices but doesn't care much that she never answered his question.

He doesn't need an answer to know the truth. The moon pulls them and the tides alike, and one day, he knows it might pull them in separate directions. He won't be able to stop it, if it happens. She's a wilder creature than him, wary of cages and collars, and he knows better than to try. But maybe she hears something in his voice that he hadn't meant to put there, some old fear or the memory of a house hollowed out by fire, or maybe she has a few fears or memories of her own. Either way, her kiss is ravenous, all tongue and teeth, skirting the edges of ferocity. She pulls him down, hands tightening on his back with an urgency he more than matches, and for a long while after, there are no questions at all.

*

She tells him later - wrapped up in tangled sheets, with moonlight casting strange shadows on their skin - about the wolf that followed a man home, trailed him for block after block down lonely streets, let him see its teeth and then let him go. He feels her shift in his arms, unbalanced by the story or its telling, and he runs his palm along the curve of her back and tells her about the bad-luck dog, the one he's never forgotten.

Silence, after that, except for the mingled sound of their breathing, the pounding surf outside their window. She rests her head on his shoulder, kisses the bite marks she'd left there, and he shivers against the heat of her skin, thinking that everything he tries to say is only half-way there, always keeping something back.

He says he loved that dog, never stopped loving it, and that gets closer to what he means to say. Her hand finds his in the darkness, and she says his name - a hushed invocation, like it's something she can keep safe forever.

*

If she ever loved anything, she never tells him, but that's alright. He knows.

**Author's Note:**

> Somewhat hesitant to even post this, since I'm not sure it even _has_ a fandom beyond like two people, but whatevs.


End file.
